Got a Real-World Weapon or Armor Question? Mk. XIV

[Mr. Mask]

What you describe is wonderfully interesting. I'm surprised it doesn't come up more. Thanks G!



On sewer systems, and the earlier topic of little people... would the existence of goblins (small, underground, antagonistic civilizations) effect the construction of sewers and towns? Listening tunnels and counter-undermining tunnels might be a good idea. I'm not sure how a sewer system could be designed to not cause immense problems for such tunnels, however.

[Brother Oni]

1) Can a repaired weapon be as good as it was when it was first forged?
2) Can a repaired weapon be better than it was when it was first forged?
3) Does reforging a weapon mean you first have to destroy it?
4) Can a reforged weapon be as good as it was when it was first forged?
5) Can a reforged weapon be better than it was when it was first forged?

Also, does the smith that's doing the reparation/reforging have to be more skilled than the original smith?

I'm afraid you have to be a little more specific by what you mean by 'repair' and what type of weapon you're referring to.

If the wrapping on the handle of a sword is a little frayed, it's a trivial (and typical) repair to make.
If the haft of a spear is completely snapped in two, then it's better to replace it than try to patch it.

Some weapons were intended to be single use only but were easily repairable (roman pilum with their soft iron heads for example), while others were intended to be discarded after use (eg. tournament lances, but they're more for exhibition than actual fighting and wooded shields, although you generally kept the metal boss for reuse).

With regard to reforging, I assume you mean that the blade of a sword is snapped, rather than something more critical like the tang snapping? Some digging indicates that repairing a clean snapped steel blade typically results in a loss of ~1" per break since you need a decent overlap for an interlocking forge weld.
Whether the blade is still reusable afterwards is highly dependent on the quality and structure of the steel and whether the break introduced any other structural weaknesses that you may have missed.

As for the skill of the smith doing the repairs, depends again on the damage and the material in question. For a simple repair job, I would say they wouldn't need to be as skilled as the original smith. For more complex repairs or materials, it may not be possible for any smith to repair it.

[Kaww]

I'm afraid you have to be a little more specific by what you mean by 'repair' and what type of weapon you're referring to.

You're right. Let's say a claymore that used to have a smooth edge, but now:
a) has enough notches and can now be used to saw wood with.
b) the blade is somehow bent.
c) the blade is broken

What other types of damage are there?

With regard to reforging, I assume you mean that the blade of a sword is snapped, rather than something more critical like the tang snapping? Some digging indicates that repairing a clean snapped steel blade typically results in a loss of ~1" per break since you need a decent overlap for an interlocking forge weld.

Why is a tang snapping more of a problem than the blade snapping and how does one snap what's inside his hand without loosing the said hand?

As for the skill of the smith doing the repairs, depends again on the damage and the material in question. For a simple repair job, I would say they wouldn't need to be as skilled as the original smith. For more complex repairs or materials, it may not be possible for any smith to repair it.

Let's take the same example as above.

[fusilier]

What you describe is wonderfully interesting. I'm surprised it doesn't come up more. Thanks G!

In other areas, like Italy where you had city states, expansion wasn't limited by an external ruler, and often you find concentric rings of walls.

Florence is an interesting example:


Here you can see the original Roman walls. The 1st communal walls (1078), 2nd communal walls (1173-1175), and 3rd communal walls (1284-1333). The citadel was added to the 3rd communal circuit in the 16th century.

The interesting thing about Florence's walls is that they planned ahead, they were made with ample space in anticipation of further growth. The last circuit of walls was very ambitious, but was completed just before the Black Death struck. As a result there was "empty space" inside the curtain walls for centuries. As can be seen in this 16th century painting of the Siege of Florence:



Nevertheless, buildings can be seen outside the walls. Sometimes I think this was done because certain industries were frowned upon by the city elders. Also, many cities and towns closed their gates at night, and any traveller arriving late would be stuck outside the city, so taverns and inns could probably find some business outside the walls. Wealthy members of society also built villas outside the city, to get away from the cramped conditions and get some fresh air.

Too many buildings huddled up against the outside of city walls were a threat to defense, as they provided cover for attackers to approach the wall. Often times outlying buildings were destroyed shortly before a siege began to prevent the attacker from taking advantage of them.

[Berenger]

So other people would begin to gather outside the walls and build houses. In practice, the town controlled this area too, sometimes a vast region around the town called the feldmark. But sometimes rival powers controlled the territory outside the town.

In the Holy Roman Empire, there were also pfahlbürger (literally "pole citizens") which lived outside the city walls but still on the cities premises. They were something like half-citizens and their exact status was often unclear or disputed which most of the time led to helluva trouble between the particular city and the surrounding nobles. There was enough strife that the legal status pfahlbürger was forbidden by law at least five times in the first half of the 14th century, for example by emperor Charles IV.

[Rhynn]

4) Can a reforged weapon be as good as it was when it was first forged?
5) Can a reforged weapon be better than it was when it was first forged?

I'm pretty sure the answer on both these counts is "no." In fact, I'm doubtful if anyone would have had a broken sword "re-forged" at all.

I'm not familiar with how forge-welding works, but austenization (heating the steel red-hot), tempering, and cooling changes the composition and characteristics of the steel, including its grain and hardness and flexibility. A sword that had snapped in two and was forge-welded would probably take on different qualities around the weld, and might be more prone to break again.

I suppose a very skilled weaponsmith working on one of his own pieces, knowing exactly what kind of steel it is and how it was worked originally, with experience in re-forging, might be able to get a result close enough to the original work... but even then, for all I know, the forge-welding may leave the spot weaker.

I'm no sword-smith, but knowing that the heating and cooling affects the quality of the steel, I am doubtful about the usefulness of re-forging. If the option is having a broken sword, sure, it's better than nothing.

Generally, if a sword was worn down, you'd get a new one. Compared to the cost of armor and horses, swords were kind of trivial...

[Mr. Mask]

Bit of a problem if the sword is Andúril.

[Kaww]

I know that in modern welding the seam has to be tougher than the rest of the material. I didn't know that swords were repaired in similar matter. My idea of it was that the broken edges were heated and then pressed (hammered) together without using additional material (While welding today uses the electrode as the additional material as well as protection from unwanted premises from the atmosphere).

[TuggyNE]

I know that in modern welding the seam has to be tougher than the rest of the material. I didn't know that swords were repaired in similar matter. My idea of it was that the broken edges were heated and then pressed (hammered) together without using additional material (While welding today uses the electrode as the additional material as well as protection from unwanted premises from the atmosphere).

From the blacksmithing books I've read, my understanding is that welding is a lot harder if you're just butting jagged surfaces together like that, since you can't very well hammer them together. Instead, the usual principle is to lap them with highly sloped surfaces and use a hammer to force them together.

Not, of course, that welding broken swords is something that was specifically covered.

[Kaww]

From the blacksmithing books I've read, my understanding is that welding is a lot harder if you're just butting jagged surfaces together like that, since you can't very well hammer them together. Instead, the usual principle is to lap them with highly sloped surfaces and use a hammer to force them together.

Not, of course, that welding broken swords is something that was specifically covered.

I phrased my post poorly. I meant that they would overlap the two layers. The type of welding with pressing jagged edges is next to impossible, I think.

[Brother Oni]

You're right. Let's say a claymore that used to have a smooth edge, but now:
a) has enough notches and can now be used to saw wood with.
b) the blade is somehow bent.
c) the blade is broken

What other types of damage are there?

First question, the medieval two handed claymore or the later basket hilted claymore?

With regard to the repair work, assuming each case is individual:

A)Resharpening a sword was standard work, although in Japan and other places where laminated steel was typically used for swords, it could be quite tricky and specialised work (you needed to remove the notches and damage without removing too much of the hardened steel).

B)A bent blade is likely to be made out of very low carbon steel, if not iron, since a too acute bend would just snap the blade instead. Slight bends and softer blades would be fairly easy to hammer out.

C)Rhynn and I have covered the reforging of a snapped blade by different methods and his point of different blade characteristics at the break point is the critical part.
With modern spot welding, I believe the properties at the reweld spot is uniform? In comparison, swords can have different characteristics along the length and width of the blade, laminated steel being an extreme version.

Any part of the sword can be damaged (hilt, quillions, pommel, etc) with varying effects depending on the sword. In some swords, the pommel is important for blade balance, so losing that will significantly affect handling, while losing a quillion may barely affect performance.

What is a tang snapping more of a problem than the blade snapping and how does one snap what's inside his hand without loosing the said hand?

The tang is where the main force from the user is transmitted into the blade, so that being damaged will affect the use of the sword. If the blade snaps, you typically still have a bit of the blade left to defend yourself - if the tang snaps the entire blade can fall off the hilt.
This is far more common with partial tangs than full tangs.

I've seen the tang of sword snap before and it's usually a combination of factors, like wear and tear or external conditions (eg moisture from the user's hand getting through the hilt and corroding the tang) combined with a hard impact being transmitted up the blade (a deflection or a parry for example).

As the tang is within the hilt of the sword, the hilt can protect the hand from damage:

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Some swords have holes in the tang so it can be cross bolted to the hilt:

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In both cases, you can see that if the tang snaps beyond the last point where it's secured to the hilt, it can simply fall off.

Rhynn is right though, generally swords were replaced if damaged, unless it was of significant emotional importance to the owner (the family blade for example).

[Kaww]

I had the Medieval one in mind, Scottish origin I believe.

What about axes and maces? Can a sword be improved by reparation (can it ever be better than the day it was made)?

Thanks for the answer and I hope you don't mind the new questions.

P.S. I'm pretty sure that a weld needs to be stronger than the surrounding material. The machine materials 102 were years ago, but I'm fairly certain about this.

[Brother Oni]

I had the Medieval one in mind, Scottish origin I believe.

Both types of claymore were Scottish.

What about axes and maces?

Axes and maces both consist of a metal head on top of a wooden haft. If the haft was damaged, it was replaced - I've never heard of a case where an axe or mace head was significantly damaged enough to require reforging and given the comparatively small amount of metal required, I presume they would be typically replaced instead.

Can a sword be improved by reparation (can it ever be better than the day it was made)?

Maybe.

If the sword is poorly made and unbalanced then by shaving and reshaping the blade, you can fix any existing defects but whether you could 'improve' a perfectly fine sword is subjective and dependent on the wielder's personal preferences.

There's a nice clip from The Thirteenth Warrior where the protagonist is unused to the heavier viking swords and gets one re-forged more to his tastes: link.
Note that the original sword would have to be of uniform steel throughout - doing that to a laminated steel sword would screw it up significantly.

P.S. I'm pretty sure that a weld needs to be stronger than the surrounding material. The machine materials 102 were years ago, but I'm fairly certain about this.

It doesn't really matter whether it's stronger or weaker, the fact remains that it's different to the non-welded material and may potentially screw up the sword.

[endoperez]

Broken swords, or swords of types that fell out of fashion, could also be reforged or reworked into daggers or short swords. I believe the Japanese especially have several examples of this. Katanas are shorter than the swords they replaced, and a katana might end up becoming a tanto, or so I've read.

[Galloglaich]

Well it depends a lot. A spear or axe with a broken haft? Sure you can fix that pretty easily, and it wouldn't be hard to make it as good before, or perhaps even better.

A snapped sword blade? Not as easy... it could be reforged into a smaller weapon though.... or with a lot of work, made back into steel bars and forged into a completely new weapon.

The Scotts famously made backswords out of their claymores when they got too notched up. Then when those got too messed up they made dirks out of them. And when they were past their prime they made skein dubh's out of those. Don't throw away a lot of stuff in Scotland..


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[Galloglaich]

In other areas, like Italy where you had city states, expansion wasn't limited by an external ruler, and often you find concentric rings of walls.

Excellent post Fusilier.

This was actually also the same pattern in the Holy Roman Empire, Sweden, Poland, Bohemia, Hungary etc., and the towns had similar maps and growth patterns. They also planned ahead the same way and they also often had open spaces inside the town, often used for agriculture. Danzig had an area called the "long gardens" for example.

If I gave the impression that most towns in Central or Northern Europe were constrained by an external ruler, it should be corrected. Some of them, like Krakow which was a Royal Capitol, were to some extent. Or Cologne, which had forcibly evicted it's Archbishop in the 14th Century, but was surrounded by what was at least nominally his territory (the Archbishopric of Cologne) for generations. But Cologne was militarily stronger than the Archbishop unless he enlisted the support of the other princes so their activities were not restrained, and Cologne expanded it's urban territory as much as it wanted, in fact it was the largest city in the Holy Roman Empire.

Others however had total control of the regions around them including vast rural territories extending sometimes hundreds of miles and encompassing hundreds or even thousands of villages and rural estates. Even relatively small towns, for example Ulm, could control vast areas of land. Lubeck and Hamburg controlled a large zone around their two cities, which included many other smaller cities essentially as subjects. Together with Luneburg they formed the epicenter of the much larger (and looser) Hanseatic League. Cities frequently formed permanent leagues of this type, for example the Lusatian League, the Pentapolitana, the Prussian Confederation, the Decapole etc.

In some places the towns treated their subjects (the peasants) harshly, notably the Germans in Estonia and Transylvania. The Saxons in Transylvania are an interesting case (and a really cool potential setting for an RPG or computer game) regarding the earlier subject of urban warfare. They were said by some to be part of Tolkein's for his dour and stern dwarves. They were tough mining communities in the hills in Romania near very dangerous borders. In the 13th Century they managed to weather the storm of the Mongol invasion (with a lot of casualties) and resolved to build more heavily fortified towns.


They created the Septem Castra, the "Seven Citadels" of heavily fortified towns capable of withstanding the Turks, Tartars and others. The region became a stronghold of Christian civilization amidst the Turkish invasion. They were somewhat cruel themselves though, and repressed the local Wlach peasants. They formed a military alliance in the 15th Century with the Transylvanian nobles and the warlike Szeklers* (local nomadic horse warriors) called the Unio Trium Nationum

If you ever wondered why Dracula movies seem to be an odd combination of German and Slavic traditions, this is why.


The more common pattern though was as Berenger mentioned regarding the pfahlbürger, towns often extended limited citizenship to some or all the rural population, allowing them to trade in the towns markets, use the towns mills, and conferring legal protection from the courts of the gentry and the Church. Often this was associated with 'cottage industries' in which the towns guilds would set up subcontracting work in the villages and they also brought in villagers as apprentices since the towns had lower birth-rates than the countryside.


The same thing occurred in central to Northern Italy with the Lombard League, and it wasn't unusual at one point for the Italian towns to force out their nobility and free all the serfs and slaves- Bologna is the classic example of this in the later 13th Century. But in Italy the towns started fighting with each other quite a bit in the 14th Century (as the old Guleph vs. Ghibelline - Emperor vs. Pope- feuds hardened into permanent vendettas, and the towns and eventually began enlisting powerful foreign rulers as their allies in internecine wars over economic interests. Eventually of course Italy was overrun by the French, the German emperor, and ultimately the Spanish. By the late 16th Century most Italian towns had been taken over by mercenary captains (signore) and / or foreign rulers, or the Pope. Venice stands out as one of the few which remained not only independent, but extremely powerful and assertive.

In Flanders, the other great industrial / technological center, their cities were huge, independent and rivaled the Italians in sophistication, but they were in a tensely balanced rivalry with their "frenemies", the powerful Dukes of Burgundy, and they fell under foreign domination after the last Duke (Charles the Bold) got himself killed fighting the Swiss (trying unsuccessfully to conquer a bunch of cities in the Rhineland) and lower Flanders came under the domination of the Holy Roman Empire, notably the Spanish side of the family which didn't mix well and amidst the religious wars, the epicenter of culture and technology moved north to Holland.



Regardless, a typical late medieval (14th-16th Century) city would consist of several municipalities, most large towns in Central or Northern Europe had 4 or 5 municipalities. Obviously they would be linked in close military and trade alliances though there could sometimes be tension. Most grew in precisely the same way that Fusilier described and the maps look much the same.


This is medieval Strasbourg for example. Strasbourg is, incidentally, another very well preserved medieval town.

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* you would never know it to listen to him due to his self loathing, self-flagellating humor, but the amusing comedian Louis CK is a descendant of these fierce people ,the Szekelys, whose name he apparently considers unpronounceable to Americans hence the acronym for a name.

[Spiryt]

You guys seem to be talking specifically about defensive structures and the richer parts of town, such as government buildings and residences, town squares, and so n. The kind of medieval street that I'm talking about is something like The Shambles, where the streets are very narrow, the buildings overhand the street, and the buildings are made of wood. My impression is that this was by far the more common street in any kind of large medieval town such as London, whereas the large plazas, fortified structures, and so on that you describe would be the exception.

If you look at just the medieval buildings that have survived to the present day, then yeah you're going to see a ton of large stone buildings with not a lot around them, because that's the kind of building that lasts 500 years, whereas the small wood house tends to get torn down eventually because nobody cares as much about "Town Residence #4953" as they do about something significant like a guild house or church.

But you keep giving us excellent examples.

Those 'shambles' look like in some places street is like 15 feet wide.

And still there are at least 3 storeys!

One cart can effectively barricade it, and with some work there's a tonne of places one can shoot from, and lob heavy stuff, that will be deadly just due to gravity, even if it's but an old, rotten barrel.

Edit: And no, you're not going to kick down the walls of most buildings, but give four burly men axes and it's not going to take long to carve yourself a path. Much harder if there's defenders on the other side of the wall trying to poke sticks at you while you do it, but I mostly meant it as a way to get close to the enemy without marching down the street, then once you're close enough you can charge the last 10-20 feet on your own.

Uh, seriously, you will need some sources on that.

You can have 4 000 'burly men' and actually carving way trough the city walls would be madness that would take weeks.

Whole lot of energy to create tiny, forced entrances that are still easily dependable choke points.


At the end of the day, defenders of the city often were themselves burning down outer layer, before the walls, buildings.

Precisely not to give opponent free cover and shooting stands.

[Spiryt]

I'm not familiar with how forge-welding works, but austenization (heating the steel red-hot), tempering, and cooling changes the composition and characteristics of the steel, including its grain and hardness and flexibility. A sword that had snapped in two and was forge-welded would probably take on different qualities around the weld, and might be more prone to break again.
.

Yes, actual, 'weld' would be pretty much guaranteed place to snap at.

But if the whole are was heated and carefully reforged again, you would get proper structure again.

If it would be actually profitable, is another question, and it would probably depend on 395 things.

[Brother Oni]

Well it depends a lot. A spear or axe with a broken haft? Sure you can fix that pretty easily, and it wouldn't be hard to make it as good before, or perhaps even better.

Can I ask how without use of modern glues or replacing the haft?

I can find several historical methods on patching wooden shafts, but none on making as good as it was before, especially for combat purposes.

[Rhynn]

Bit of a problem if the sword is Andúril.

Actually, Andúril wasn't IMO "reforged" as in "broken pieces" (pretty sure it's just snapped in two in the books?) forge-welded together, but more like "take the hilt and other fittings and put it in a new blade." After all, it's not Andúril that is reforged: it's Narsil that is reforged into Andúril.

It's the whole "Ship of Theseus" thing, to me.

What about axes and maces? Can a sword be improved by reparation (can it ever be better than the day it was made)?

I'd say "not really." To make a better sword you start over. The amount of hammering, the heat, annealing, cooling, and tempering are a very complex process, and I don't see any way that beating on an already-made sword is going to help. For one thing, I wouldn't be surprised if it shattered when you heated it and struck it with a hammer - a sword that's been finished is more brittle than the ingot/blank it was forged from, because the forging process has altered its characteristics. Of course, swords need to not be very brittle, but the starting state is more malleable and durable, but softer, than the finishing state. They have to hardened to hold an edge, but that makes them more brittle.

If it was, say, left without a tang or grip or not sharpened right the day it was made, sure, you can fix that, but the actual quality of the steel - I doubt it.

But I'm no smith, I've just read about swords...

A snapped sword blade? Not as easy... it could be reforged into a smaller weapon though.... or with a lot of work, made back into steel bars and forged into a completely new weapon.

Was that done, historically? I wondered, because it seems unlikely anyone would just waste steel if it can be salvaged... I suppose melting the sword down would "re-set" the properties, and if you knew what you were doing, you'd get the carbon content etc. right (at least if you knew the method it was originally forged with) ?

[Galloglaich]

Can I ask how without use of modern glues or replacing the haft?

I can find several historical methods on patching wooden shafts, but none on making as good as it was before, especially for combat purposes.

No hahah you misunderstood me - if you have a broken haft you put a new haft on the 'head' of the weapon. You don't 'fix' a broken haft! The spear point or axe blade (etc.) is the expensive part anyway.

The Swiss used to have guys in their armies who specialized in doing this.

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[Brother Oni]

Was that done, historically? I wondered, because it seems unlikely anyone would just waste steel if it can be salvaged... I suppose melting the sword down would "re-set" the properties, and if you knew what you were doing, you'd get the carbon content etc. right (at least if you knew the method it was originally forged with) ?

I believe it was possible to 'beat' the carbon out of fairly high carbon pig iron to turn it back into iron or a better grade steel, but with medieval methods this was incredible time consuming.

I see no reason why it couldn't be done with the lower carbon steels like that used in swords if you had enough time and patience.

No hahah you misunderstood me - if you have a broken haft you put a new haft on the 'head' of the weapon. You don't 'fix' a broken haft! The spear point or axe blade (etc.) is the expensive part anyway.

Ah, that's what I thought.

[Spiryt]

Was that done, historically? I wondered, because it seems unlikely anyone would just waste steel if it can be salvaged... I suppose melting the sword down would "re-set" the properties, and if you knew what you were doing, you'd get the carbon content etc. right (at least if you knew the method it was originally forged with) ?

But why melt anything in the first place?

Just heat it to the temperature when it's forge-able again, and carefully bind the meeting surfaces again - probably would include forging them in some kind of two flat "overlaps" and work from there.

Actually melting anything about sword is no-no, cast steel doesn't have proper properties for a large blade.

Cast steel billets produced large scale since about ~ 1600 would have to be thoroughly reforged for proper grain structure - if anyone would want to make a blade out of them.

[fusilier]

Excellent post Fusilier.

This was actually also the same pattern in the Holy Roman Empire, Sweden, Poland, Bohemia, Hungary etc., and the towns had similar maps and growth patterns. They also planned ahead the same way and they also often had open spaces inside the town, often used for agriculture. Danzig had an area called the "long gardens" for example.

If I gave the impression that most towns in Central or Northern Europe were constrained by an external ruler, it should be corrected.

Ah. I had come away with that impression, thanks for the clarification.

[fusilier]

But why melt anything in the first place?

Just heat it to the temperature when it's forge-able again, and carefully bind the meeting surfaces again - probably would include forging them in some kind of two flat "overlaps" and work from there.

Actually melting anything about sword is no-no, cast steel doesn't have proper properties for a large blade.

Cast steel billets produced large scale since about ~ 1600 would have to be thoroughly reforged for proper grain structure - if anyone would want to make a blade out of them.

I suppose you could recycle the material and make another sword?

Viringuccio, in Pirotechnia, describes a kind of solder for repairing cracks in swords.

[Mr. Mask]

Rhynn: I don't remember exactly how it was described, but that seems a reasonable argument. "Here's a sword that looks like the king's sword, to make you seem more... kingy."

[Rhynn]

Rhynn: I don't remember exactly how it was described, but that seems a reasonable argument. "Here's a sword that looks like the king's sword, to make you seem more... kingy."

It was bugging me and I had to go and look it up. In The Ring Goes South the description is a little ambiguous. It does not read to me like the sword was welded together, but whether a new "blank" (tang & blade) was forged or the old one was melted down into a rod or something and forged from scratch is unclear. The smiths at Rivendell wrote many runes on the blade "for Aragorn son of Arathorn was going to war upon the marches of Mordor."

In The Council of Elrond, we are explicitly told that Narsil was in two pieces. The movie depicts it as shards kept at Rivendell, but in the book, Aragorn carries it in his scabbard.

[Mike_G]

It was bugging me and I had to go and look it up. In The Ring Goes South the description is a little ambiguous. It does not read to me like the sword was welded together, but whether a new "blank" (tang & blade) was forged or the old one was melted down into a rod or something and forged from scratch is unclear. The smiths at Rivendell wrote many runes on the blade "for Aragorn son of Arathorn was going to war upon the marches of Mordor."

In The Council of Elrond, we are explicitly told that Narsil was in two pieces. The movie depicts it as shards kept at Rivendell, but in the book, Aragorn carries it in his scabbard.

My favorite description is in Bored of the Rings, where the sword has been "hastily reglued."

[oudeis]

I've always thought it was pretty clear that Narsil was melted down and remade as Anduril. Per The Silmarillion, the blade was made back in the First Age at the height of Dwarven craftsmanship, and passed down from father to son in the line of the Kings of Men until it was broken at the ending of the Second Age, when Aragorn's ancestor used it to deal the final blow to Sauron. It wasn't just a relic of paramount familial and political significance to him, it was a product of techniques lost to the world for several millennia. I think it likely that the blade was made of an alloy whose composition had never been duplicated and so had to be preserved.

[Galloglaich]

Like wootz steel in the real world, and the so called ulfberht swords.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulfberht


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